Stollery's Lemonade Stand Day to honour slain girl

Courtesy: Melissa Desrosiers

EDMONTON — The Stollery Children's Hospital seventh annual Lemonade Stand Day this Sunday will remember a young girl who was killed earlier this year.

The tradition, which has raised more than $700,000 for the Stollery's art therapy program, will honour seven-year-old Bella Desrosiers.

Bella, who was known in her neighbourhood as the Lemonade Stand Girl, ran her own stand with her sister for several years, and this year customers will be able to get a memorial sticker with her picture.

“Actually, the day we were going into a meeting where I was going to say in this meeting,'You know what,I just don't think lemonade Sunday should happen,'I got the news that Bella had  passed away,” saidthe event's chairperson, Monita Chapman.

“I said,'You know what, we're going to make this happen, whatever we have to do.'And so Lemonade Sunday is happening because of her this year, because she was such a strong spirit for everything that we believed in and everything we did.”

The stands will look a little different this year with COVID-19 protocols and safety measures in place, but organizers say the lemonade sales will go on.

“It’s completely different this year, and it’s going to be great still though.It’s awesome,” said Chapman.

“We really wanted to focus on prepping the kids on how to live in our new normal, and so we’ve given them all the tools to create social distancing at their stand, to clean their stand, to wear proper PPE. We just really wanted to focus on all those things their going to have to get used to in school.”

Lemonade will be sold in bottled water with pre-packaged flavourpouches so customers can mix it themselves.

Organizers are also hoping most visits will be drive-bys, ensuring minimal contact between customers and kids running the stand.

If you would like to support the charity,donations can be made in person or by text. Visitlemonadeyeg.cafor more information.